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— i like this chapter! it's cute :) —
The last time I lost my necklace, I was twelve.
Mother gave it to me on my twelfth birthday. I remember seeing her wear it every day of my life up until then when she took it off, clasped it around my neck, and told me to never take it off. I remember thinking it felt heavy. I'd owned a few light necklaces, but thag locket was heavy. Gold, almost bronze, and despite all the times I've deep cleaned it, it's never lost it's tarnished look.
Mother says it's older than I can imagine.
Anyway, she gave it to me on my birthday and told me never to take it off. Obviously, I didn't listen. It's just a locket, so I figured it didn't matter if I took it off every once in a while. So I did. Some days the clasp would get tangled in the hair at the back of my head and rip it out, so I'd get frustrated and take it off. I've always hated the feeling of wearing jewelry while showering, so I'd always leave it on the bathroom counter next to the sink to put back on after drying off.
But I lost it one day, of maybe it fell off. Whatever it was, it was missing for the entire last week of summer before I began my first year of magic schooling. I was a little worried, but not too stressed, because I figured it would turn up eventually.
And it did, but Mother was the one who found it on the floor behind my dresser.
She had a riot when she found it, bathing into my bathroom right when I was about to shower—I was fully clothed, thankfully—with the locket dangling from her fist and her eyes burning with an insane kind of fury. I froze when she looked at me like that, and I didn't move a single muscle for the entire twenty minutes she shouted at me. If I spoke, I was on autopilot—like when she asked me how long I've been without it, I told her it was a week, and she just shouted some more. I didn't understand it then, and I still don't understand it much now, but for some reason, that necklace is important enough for her to go on a massive rage if I don't wear it.
Here I am five-and-a-half years later in the exact same predicament, except there's no way it's my fault this time.
The day after she found it, I began school. For years, I never bothered taking the locket off, not even when I was showering, or when I was sleeping and the chain was bothering me, or when it looked odd with whatever I was wearing. I didn't feel comfortable taking it off until about a year ago.
And so now I'm standing in the middle of my bathroom, a towel around my body and a towel wrapped around my hair, staring blankly at the counter next to my sink where my locket should be waiting for me to put it back on.
"Oh, fuck," I whisper, wrapping my arms around myself while clutching my towel with my hand to keep it together. I stare with wide eyes at the empty counter as if the locket will magically reappear. "I'm screwed."
